Emotional.

“Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope” 
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

The quote is from one of my favourite books in the whole world. I hope that one day I can be someone who struggled but won the battle. Right now that seems unimaginable, especially as being home with my parents makes my behaviours worse than ever. I’m in the house where it all started, with the people who I would shout at or ignore for coming in the kitchen when I was there. I don’t have a go at them any more  but that makes it worse for me, because I end up taking out those difficult emotions on myself.

On the upside, I love not having to rush in the holidays. It makes me a bit calmer.. just still nervous waiting for an important letter.

 

I’m home.

As planned, I am home for the holidays. After an organisation screw up (not my own) I didn’t get any news like I hoped for on Thursday, so I’M STILL WAITING.

Part of me is enjoying being home, catching up with people, being in a quiet (ish) house etc… but at the same time it is hard. I feel like everyone is constantly judging my current body to what they thought of my body when I saw them three months ago. It is so confusing (as I’ve blogged about before) that I am so distressed by my ed, yet a bit of me is strongly determined to get sicker.

Wanting to be physically fit for my current training AND get thinner can’t logically be a realistic combination, or can it? No, it can’t, I know that deep down. Thing is, I can’t help but hear that voice in my head that says I would lazy for not restricting and exercising, and that I must do my very best to have both, and that if I end up breaking down then atleast people will have confirmation that I don’t make up my disorder.

The fact I have been, and am still contemplating how ill is “good enough” for me stop is probably a ginormous sign that I am presently not well, but of course, it is not enough. I am so aware of my ed patterns, the stages of depression and anxiety I experience, and what is actually a healthy diet, but it doesn’t seem to matter. My ed thoughts make me so extremely worried about everything that I am too afraid to change. What also doesn’t help, is that I began this academic year with new people, in a new city at a healthy weight. That period of being ok on the outside (thank you weight gain from binge/purge NOT) just made me feel even worse on the inside, so I have gradually lost weight since I started. Those that I live with see me everyday and are therefore notice my physical change less. I am desperate to prove to them I really do have a problem.

They already know. We have talked about it. They have seen me very upset about it at times…. but like everything, that isn’t enough. I don’t want them to think I’m a fraud, despite the fact that having an ed is only seen as important to the disordered…

 

First bit of my plan is ruined already..

I was supposed to find out whether I can stay where I am next year on Thursday. Now I don’t know when I will find out. Whoever changed their mind has no idea how stressful this is without all the plan changing.

I have waited weeks already and so waiting even longer is just dragging out the uncertainty more. That coupled with going home in a couple of days is making for a field day of anxiety and crappy ed thoughts in my head.

One day at a time, one day at a time, one day at a time..

AHHHH.

Holiday plans.

So, in my mind I have an exciting last day of this term on Thursday, an easy journey home that night, I look visibly thinner to my family (although I may not believe them if they say I do… :S), and I spend my holidays catching up with people back home, exercising and relishing in the quiet home kitchen, where I can cook and eat as I wish.

If Thursday goes to plan, then it will kick it all off positively- which is an adverb that I rarely have good use for at the moment! I know I have probably posted about all of this about a million times, but it is on my mind BIGTIME so just need to keep reassuring myself that all I can do is keep going….

One step at a time…

Right now, I am cycling through restricting, the odd binge day, taking laxatives, obsessive exercising, breaking down, and repeating all of the above. Right now I just need to keep on going and doing one thing a a time.

Walking obsession.

I go through times where I walk on the spot for hours on end to burn calories. I am doing that right now.

It makes me feel so much more comfortable with having eaten at all, but at the same time, I hate that I feel so compelled to do it. I’m tired and bored. Therefore, tomorrow I am going to eat a lower calorie number so that I don’t have to walk.

I do want to get better and be a normal eventually, but right now, I can only think about being thinner. In a very messed up, illogical way, I won’t allow myself to get better until I have got worse….

Impatient snapping.

My obsession over food makes me snap. It is never anybody else’s wrong doing; they are just unfortunate to be getting in the way of me eating, cooking etc.

Today I had to wait 2 hours for people to go out of the kitchen so I could get one bowl of cereal. It’s ridiculous, but I spent that whole waiting time being so impatient and snappy with everyone who spoke to me, because all I could think about was the cereal. Of course I haven’t eaten an amount to fill me up, cos I don’t like to be full…

 

Slow and steady wins the race..

That was the advice I got given today, and I guess it is right.

My problem is that while I am always getting better at being articulate and open about my issues, the disorder is still there. I am still fixated on food and weight control as a way of controlling my body and my life in general. I am always fearful of others thinking I have gained weight when I go home/ come back for a new term, and so lose more to try to prevent people from commenting. A big part of me wants to be ill forever, and there are very few moments when I am 100% determined to be recovered. I am fighting a constant battle against myself, in a place where most people don’t have a clue anything is going on.

Today I was more tired, more cold & more stuck in my own head than usual (I’ve eaten 1200 calories less than what I need to maintain, which the disorder bit of my brain is over the moon about….) and so I couldn’t stop worrying when I thought someone had seen me eat something that I’d never tell anybody I’d eaten usually.

Part of me feels so silly for speaking to them and explaining that I was so guilty that I spat it out anyway, but saying the words “I can’t eat things like that because I’m afraid of becoming fatter or being perceived as greedy” made me feel like I’ve reminded them that I am empty and clean of horrible food that could ruin all of my control. I obviously realise that they don’t think like me and therefore don’t care, but I do.

Since moving here, I have had 4 bulimic “incidents” during which I have binged and purged, but those 4 days aside, I have been my usual anorexia obsessive control freak about food. I know that nobody here will ever fully understand what it is like to have an eating problem, but sometimes I just have to say the crazy things in my head, just so they stop whirring around my brain for a while. It can be hard,no, it IS hard. Even when I’m writing on here, where nobody even knows me personally, I am keeping secrets. That’s what ED’s do best: hide.

 

You know you have a messed up mind when a bit of you wants to be in hospital.

I know more than one person who has been hospitalised because of their eating disorder. For one of those people the inpatient time was only 2 weeks long. I don’t know what happened to initiate them going into hospital, but I just keep thinking that a fortnight is really not long at all, so maybe I would feel better if that happened to me…

I feel like an absolute idiot for even having the tiniest wish to go into hospital, but I can’t deny that it is there, and so I am writing to get it out. 

I have thought about this for a long time, and on days when I feel very low, having the validation of my disorder by being in hospital seems so appealing. Realistically speaking, I don’t want my life to be put on hold,.yet sometimes that is what I want more than anything else in the world. Sometimes everything just feels too much and I sit in a heap on the floor unable to do anything.

The “dream” would be to be fully eating disordered and function normally- obviously not an option- so when my issues are really getting in the way of my life, I feel like if I could finally hit the bottom of my ed then I could come back out of it and get on with being normal… The thing is, there is no bottom. There is always I way I feel I could be sicker, thinner, more depressed etc. There will always be somebody worse than me.

I guess part of my current worry, is that I am in a relatively new environment, full of people that mostly do not understand anything about any kind of mental,illness at all, and so it feels necessary and like it would be an “achievement” to prove to them that I really do have an eating disorder. 

Right now I am also waiting for one very, very important letter, which will probably determine what I’m doing for the next few years. I know that I will get this just before the end of the month. With that in mind, my focus is on hoping that it will say what I want to, so that I can relax knowing that my future is sorted out for a while. 

Once I read that letter (and if it is the outcome I hope for) then I will feel like I don’t need to keep holding things together, as I have been for the last months. If that pressure is relieved then I can relax a little.

The day I get that letter is also the day that I go home for Easter- busy time hey!? I have quite a long holiday and all I can think about is getting noticeably thinner for the new term.

Reading this all back just makes me feel silly. I know how bad it is to think like this, but right now there is so much pressure in my life that I can’t stop it. I WANT it there. I WANT to be eating disordered. I can’t let go of it now because it is the only thing I am holding on to.

If I get good news in that letter AND I lose lots over Easter, then I will tell my therapist I need the more intensive treatment option. Sorry to anyone who is reading all this non-nonsensical babbling, but hey, I wrote this to be a place to figure things out, and I have: I am as messed up as ever, I wish I weren’t, but right now I feel that I need and want to be. however much I want to get on with being normal.

Going home.

I’ve not been to my family home since Christmas. but I’m going back for Easter holidays in  weeks. I am excited, but all of the positivity about it seems to be getting more and more overridden by worry that people back home will think I’m fatter or the same size as I was last time I was there..   :S

I know it is silly to even be thinking about that, but I just can’t stop. That thought is there, I have accepted the way I feel about it but I can’t control that situation and so i’m scared. What if somebody says something?

I think I get so worried because that house and that situation is where my ed started. and so  my family and friends there have seen me at my biggest (normal weight, slim from being active), at my thinnest and the times when I gained quite rapidly from binges. It is horrible knowing that my illness will be in other people’s heads, as whatever they say can be distorted and relayed in my brain as a massive criticism. 

This just makes me feel even more fixated on restricting. I must be thinner. I must make sure nobody thinks I am bigger. 

I wish I could just look forward to it!